Aotearoa / New Zealand

The forests of New Zealand fall into two broad types, the conifer
hardwood forests dominated mainly by podocarps such as the timber
producing species totara, miro (Prumnopitys ferruginea) and rimu
(Dacrydium cupressinum) and the southern beech forests dominated
by one or more of the four indigenous species of Nothofagus.
The podocarps have an ancestry that goes back into the age of the
dinosaurs, being found as fossils from the Jurassic period 190 to 135
million years ago. These conifers are wind pollinated and evolved
before the true flowering plants.

»Click here to access a map with the locations of the collection highlighted.

Kauri (Agathis australis)

The kauri, today confined to the northern part
of the North Island, once grew throughout New
Zealand. Its close relatives are found in the tropics
today, many on islands to the near north through to
Borneo. These trees grow to enormous proportions.
Some larger ones were worshipped as gods by the
Maori, as evidenced by the specimen known as
Tane Mahuta.

First used in 1772 by the French explorer du Fresne
to replace his ship's mizzen mast and bowsprit,
kauri and its close relatives became major timber
species wherever they could be accessed. Once
employed for virtually everything, kauri became
scarce, and the industry declined in the 1920s.
Mining kauri gum for varnish, from the enormous
buried reserve left from the millions of years that
these trees inhabited Northland, began to replace
forestry as an economic activity.

Today, plantations of replacement trees are being
grown on private land; all the trees on public land
are protected. As kauri take over 100 years to
mature, these are long term investments.

Occasionally buried logs of these former giants
are dug out of the ground where they have lain for
thousands of years and are milled.

Maori plant use and botanical names

On their arrival in Aotearoa New Zealand around
800 years ago, the Maori found much of the land
was heavily forested. Trees supplied their building
and sea craft needs as well as foods, fibres, tools,
medicines, and dyes.

The Maori's centuries of inhabitation of Aotearoa
New Zealand prior to the arrival of Europeans
allowed them to establish which plants were useful
to them, and to adopt some as part of their belief
structure explaining the world. One group used
extensively were the podocarps, a family of conifers
with fleshy covered single seeded fruits.

Totara (Podocarpus totara) timber was prized by the
Maori as being the best for building their massive
war canoes, and was also the main timber used
for carving. The long trunks of mature trees made
it possible to build vessels that would carry up to
100 warriors. Maori custom demanded that
when a totara tree was felled for timber a
young seedling had to be planted
in its place in order to appease Tane, the god of
the forest, for removing one of his 'children'.

Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydoides) is a
tree that grows to 48m tall with long
clear trunks when mature. The
fleshy part of the bright red fruit
was eaten, but to harvest these
the tree had to be climbed
and the branches scoured.
Although the kahikatea crops
heavily, the price could be high,
as harvesters could lose their grip
and sometimes also their lives.

The Maori named trees for different
characteristics and uses, so some
botanically unrelated plants were
grouped under a single descriptive name, such
as mingi mingi or miki miki, for berry-bearing
shrubs. These names remain in use and sometimes have
been included in the botanical names.